Julian Bishko Professor of History
Professor of LawPh.D., University of Chicago, 1993M.A., University of Chicago, 1988B.A., Wesleyan University, 1983

Paul Halliday is Julian Bishko professor of history and chair of the University’s Corcoran Department of History. He writes about the legal history of Britain and its empire from the 16th to 19th centuries. His most recent book, Habeas Corpus: From England to Empire, was published by Harvard University Press in 2010 and won the 2011 Inner Temple Book Prize. He frequently consults in the writing of briefs submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court on issues connected to English legal history.

Halliday's research has been supported by fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Mellon Foundation, and the American Philosophical Society. He is now working on two research projects: one exploring the archival and other material forms of judicial authority in the 18th century and the other concerned with the formation of the imperial constitution, and in particular, with the judicial role in the making of empire. Through all his work runs a persistent interest in rethinking English law’s history and the use of that history in U.S. courts, as well as an interest in the relationship of English law to other legal regimes around the globe.